


Embark

by Glump



Category: Pushing Daisies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:03:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13533459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glump/pseuds/Glump
Summary: Olive Snook recently returned from the nunnery with a new sense of self and a ...pig?





	Embark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antsy/gifts).



In the sleepy town of Coeur d’Coeurs, at exactly sixteen hours, five minutes and seven seconds after midnight, on the floor of a lovingly checkered bakery known to us as the Pie Hole, a meeting occurred.  
It wasn’t a regular meeting, not a business one with grey-faced white men in suits, thinking themselves more important than they actually were, nor was it a meeting of friends or lovers shared over a piece of fresh out-of-the-oven three plum pie a la mode. This was a meeting of a pig and a dog.  
To some, that may seem like a weird thing but in the sleepy town of Coeur d’Coeurs, in this checkered and pie-themed bakery, this was hardly the weirdest thing happening.  
This specific pig and dog, accurately named Pigby and Digby, had never met before. It wasn’t fate that brought them together on this cold spring afternoon, but rather two people. These people, who in turn had definitely been brought together by fate a few years prior to this event, were none other than the owner of the Pie Hole, and its longtime waitress, Olive Snook.  
Olive Snook, who knew that owner slash piemaker of the establishment Ned liked bringing his dog Digby to the Pie Hole, saw no fault in letting her newly acquired friend Pigby the truffle pig come to work with her, too. She had hoped it would be a smooth encounter between the two of them, but her assessment of Digby’s soul, almost sweeter than the pies she served, left her in good faith.  
So when Olive, having left Pigby at the bar, went inside the kitchen to grab Digby, loyally laid at Ned’s feet, licking at the crumbs of pie that he dropped, she was nothing but optimistic.  
She lured him outside, her high voice incentive enough to make Digby rise from his crouch.  
Pigby, who had only ever seen humans and pigs in her short life, shivered at the sight of this weirdly shaped thing that wagged its completely uncurled tail at her.  
Digby, who had twice the experience and lifespan, seemed unfazed by that. He sniffed the air, the distinct smell of Ned and Olive and pies and customers he was so used to reaching his snout, but also the smell of this strange being, more naked than him, bigger and rounder and somehow so different. He sniffed again, just to make sure he was getting this right, and then he cautiously approached the round dog that Olive had called Pigby.  
Digby, so accustomed to the limitations that his love for Ned brought with it, was hesitant to touch Pigby, waiting for Ned’s approval.  
Digby knew that the piemaker was special and that he had saved him from death and he also knew that they could never touch but Digby didn’t know if there were other things like the piemaker, other beings he could not touch. So Digby waited for Ned to reassure him, that touching was okay.  
Olive, who mistook Digby’s caution for fear, called his name to coax him closer to Pigby. Digby obliged.  
Tail wagging in anticipation; he took another sniff, snout pressed closely to the pig’s body, getting himself accustomed to the other’s unique scent.  
Pigby, on her part, was slowly getting used to the idea of accepting this fluffy tail-wagging being – not quite friend but no longer foe.  
Olive Snook, pie-waitress turned nun turned pie-waitress again, traded looks with an exasperated piemaker, who in turn was not quite sure what a truffle pig was doing in his bell-on-the-door bakery.  
Lonely tourist Charlotte Charles, who came barging through the Pie Hole’s entrance, setting off said bell, made Digby jump back in surprise.  
Her past life as a shut-in niece to equally shut-in aunts did not make Charlotte Charles clueless to social cues. She was able to read them like she read all those books in her youth.  
So when the moment came for Chuck to say something, she did not disappoint.  
“Oh Olive, you’ve introduced them! How is it going?”  
“Well, it was going well until you barged in here and scared Digby!”, Olive said, salt in her voice as tangy as freshly harvested seaweed. And just like freshly harvested seaweed, Olive did turn a little green around the nose when Ned burst out of the kitchen at the sound of Chuck’s voice, when he did not even acknowledge Olive earlier.  
“Chuck!”, he said, his mouth softening around the letters in the same way his eyes softened whenever Charlotte Charles was around.  
In return, Chuck started fidgeting around, intertwining her hands, whole face lighting up with her toothpaste-smile – her response to Ned’s vicinity.  
Olive’s eyes ricocheted between the two, her mouth letting out a long and pained sigh for good measure. If only Emerson was here with her, it’d be easier to endure the lovesick exchange happening before her.  
Meanwhile Pigby and her dog counterpart were both lying flat on the ground, sniffing and shaking their heads at each other playfully, testing the waters of their new kinship.  
Olive, upon finally looking away from Ned and Chuck’s puppy eyes and looking down to the real puppy in the Pie Hole, gasped in joy as she saw her pets indulging each other. She clapped her hands in rapid succession, jumping up and down in her too-high-heels.  
“I knew you were gonna hit it off with him, Pigby! Digby is a true gentleman.”, she addressed the pig. Pigby answered with a delighted rumbling noise, emerging deep from within. 

Later that night Olive convinced Ned to let Digby and Pigby have a little sleepover, to deepen the bond, come on Ned, they’re getting along great, let me have this!  
Ned, tired of the never-ending arguments with the energetic Miss Snook caved in easily, smiling at her with that dimpled smitten smile only Olive could bring him to do. Oh how she loved the Piemaker! 

While Ned loved having Digby around, loved it even more than baking pie or touching dead things and watching them come back to life, he tended to dread it on some days. He dreaded that he had to keep his distance, that Digby could never really settle down when he was around because he was far too focused on having the Piemaker in his sights at all times. So although Ned loved Digby and Digby loved Ned they had to spend time apart sometimes, for peace of mind.  
Olive had grown used to this, taking the dog from Ned at least twice a week to demand some Snook-Digby bonding, often joking that he was like their kid, spending weekends at mommy’s.  
Pigby loved these days. She had fallen deeply in love with her dog-companion, missing him even more than she missed finding truffles for the Sisters of the Divine Magnatum and the belly rubs that followed. Pigby, being incredibly imaginative for being stuck in a pig-body, often pictured Digby and her playing in the hallways of the nunnery where she grew up, showing him around the different rooms and letting him in on the secret which nun would sneak oatmeal under the table for Pigby to devour.  
Sleepovers at the Snook residence were a win-win situation for pretty much everyone involved, apart from Charlotte Charles who didn’t mind either way if she was being completely honest. She just loved the fact that her little self-made patchwork family was getting along so fabulously.  
Olive Snook spent the night drinking herbal tea after herbal tea, watching her two animal-friends play, gossiping about the newest poop she picked up at the Pie Hole with Chuck and bathing in the fact that this was her new reality, that she didn’t need to return to the nunnery, that she was welcome and loved and home right here, with her unlikely pets and unlikely roommate and unlikely boss living next-door.  
As Olive went to bed that night she was lulled to sleep by Pigby’s snoring and Digby’s huffing and Chuck’s whispering and she could not imagine a place she would rather be than right here - home.


End file.
